Reply #32: The skull's a tough SOB

[Posteritatis]

Remember, it spent several hundred million years evolving to defend the most important organ in the body, and the forehead itself is especially effective as armor.

If it's not a direct hit, the bullet can riccochet off the skull, or get embedded partly in it, or even run around the exterior of it and stay lodged beneath the skin. Someone could get shot in the front of the head, have an exit wound in the back, and not have the ground penetrate the skull at all, though that would be exceptional.

Some guy was shot in the back of the head a block from where I was a few years ago, and literally didn't know it happened - he thought someone threw a rock at him, until he realized the round was still there a day or so later. That was a smaller caliber, but still.

I guarantee you both of these guys are going around thinking "...skulls are really cool" right now.